Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party sources said Saturday that the group intends to nominate a second presidential candidate in anticipation of Khairat al-Shater’s exclusion. The sources added that the candidate most probably would be chairman of the party Mohamed Morsy.
The decision comes after former Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman announced his presidential bid Friday, which the sources said prompted the group to take proactive measures.
"The supreme body of the party intends in its meeting, in the next few hours, to field a new Brotherhood candidate, beside al-Shater who will continue the presidential race," they said.
The party said that it would likely be Morsy who would serve as an understudy to Shater, in case the latter ran into any obstacles in the election process. If Shater is forced to withdraw, they said Morsy would continue, but if not, Morsy would withdraw and Shater continue. They said lawyers from the group and party leaders were going to submit an official letter from the party endorsing Morsy to the Political Parties’ Affairs Commission Saturday.
“That is a normal move as the group and the party were going to resort to the same [strategy] in the parliamentary elections as a proactive measure against manipulation and fraud; to have a primary candidate and another spare," the sources said.
Shater is technically still serving out a prison term he was given under former President Hosni Mubarak, which could disqualify him from the race.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
